LiberalConservative:lewismarktwo: meanmutton: PillsHere: When I first moved out on my own and went to the grocery store I bought some pepperoni (it was pre-sliced for pizza and packaged in that tight plastic then put into a cardboard box and refrigerated). Anyway, after I got home and opened it looked and felt weird. I looked at the date and saw it had expired months ago :/. I'm not sure why it didn't dawn on me to check the date beforehand. That was the first time I started to realize grocery stores might not be on the up and up.

Also, I'm glad I wipe down my cart every time. I always feel like people look at me funny when I do, but whatever.

Also, when people say wash your produce, I've never known what that meant exactly for different people. I generally rinse and then wipe them dry with a paper towel. Do people use soap or something? I've always worried that I'm doing it wrong.

NEVER use soap. You want to wash it under water with some sort of abrasion. A vegetable brush is handy to have around (just wash it after you use it every time, keep it in a drawer and don't use it for cleaning your pans).

Why not use soap? Unless your fruit is organic it's covered with waxy/oily pesticides and a bit of dish detergent is one of the only safe ways to remove it.

Wash a non organic apple with a drop of soap and marvel at the new non waxy texture the peel has. And grapes? Have fun individually washing those with a brush.

I got the grape thing covered; Mrs LC peels them all for me and puts them in a container for me to take to work.

Soaking fruits and veggies in the sink in cold water with about a 1/4 cup of white vinegar has worked for me so far. Then a quick rinse and no vinegar taste left over.

Rising_Zan_Samurai_Gunman:Thingster: Snarcoleptic_Hoosier: Rising_Zan_Samurai_Gunman: Hate to tell you this subby, but there is literally poop everywhere, and its actually ok to be exposed to little bits of it - that's what your immune system is for. Now obviously, if there is visible poop on the cart, then you shouldn't use it. And produce should always be washed, mostly due to salmonella (especially melons - wash thoroughly before slicing)

As for the other stuff, most of that is already known and not that gross. You can actually eat most many spoiled foods with minimal health effects, it will just make you retch if it smells or tastes gross. Peanut butter for example can go rancid, but that's about the worst that happens to it. For many, many foods, the date on the package is a sell by date, not a use by date, which could be months or years later in some cases.

My rule is if it has to be stored in the fridge, it's gone within 24 hours of the use by date. Stored at room temperature, it's fine. I buy meat in the red sticker (huge markdown for close to expiring at my supermarket) area and freeze it. Thaw it out 24 hours beforehand and you've got cheap meat for a meal.

Even after that, there's cutting mold away and boiling. I'm not saying I do that, but as Americans, we throw away tons of perfectly serviceable foods.

Agreed, wasting a lot of food. Just in case you don't know, that date on eggs is a sell by date - they're usually good at least 3 weeks past that is properly stored. in fact, if you're making hard boiled eggs, you usually want them at least a week past that date. Condiments are also generally fine well past the date, but it depends. Mayo should go sooner rather than later - it can go longer if its a squeeze bottle vs a jar you put a knife into. Mustard lasts a very long time. Tonight I actually used Salad dressing that had a "Best By" date of October 2012, and it tast ...

Mayo actually lasts really well because it's acidic which hinders bacteria growth. So things like potato salad do fine sitting in the sun for a while at a picnic, or tuna salad sitting in a brown paper bag for 4 hours.

By dying at much younger ages due to a lack of medicine and sanitation?

Generally, the life expectancy numbers you're thinking of were lower because people died in childhood a lot more. Because kids and the elderly have weaker immune systems than adults. If you made it past 12, you had a pretty good chance at a nice long life. But a lot of people died at 3 or whatever, so the average gets dragged down to 45 or whatever.

Seriously, you have a farking immune system for a reason. Unless it's compromised in some way, the whole bubble boy thing will make you less healthy, not more.

I wish we could convince the overly panicky mothers who have been brainwashed into thinking they need every product from Clorox on standby 24/7 just in case their kid touches a germ. There are a few very large megacorps that are responsible for the vast majority of over-sterilization products on the market today.

This is why I actually desanitize my hands, I try to touch has much bacteria and virus infected material as possible. Then I make sure to strongly shake hands with everyone I meet. When eating I make sure to touch common food and refrain from using tongs. I split food with everyone I can. I feel it is just my service to society. Undoing all the over sanitizing people do that compromises their immune system.

/uses grocery carts from the store downstairs when going on dumpster runs//no, they don't get wiped down afterwards

///wash your produce before you eat it, seriously

I had an idiot coworker who told me she never washed her produced "because I buy organic, so it doesn't need washing."

geesh, who cares about spray! I'd be more concerned about 5 million hands all over that produce before it comes to me. Not to mention that cross-contamination from salmonella and whatnot

blech.

I'm working at a fruitstand and people smell the fruit... their farking nose touches the fruit! for the love of god that grosses me out. Now someone is gonna buy fruit that your snotty nose was all over. ughhhh

also all the fruit is picked by dirty hippies, even the organic stuff.

on the other hand we also sell soft icecream from a machine that is never sanitized, just cleaned with pure water. LOL

TommyymmoT:cameroncrazy1984: People still go to supermarkets that don't have disinfectant wipes right at the entrance?

I never realized they were there for that reason.Makes sense I guess, so that all the Howie Mandels, and Adrian Monks of the world don't starve to death.

I have never had a problem with any of that stuff.Many years ago, I supervised janitorial crews, and we used to clean toilets, garbage cans, sinks, whatever, without gloves, and none of us even got the sniffles.

The workers at the offices we cleaned however, were out sick all the time despite the fact that we cleaned and disinfected damn near everything, every night.

We used to even do the door knobs, push bars, banisters etc because that's what they wanted, and paid for.These were state offices, and it was almost laughable watching the officer workers coming to work wearing surgical masks during flu season, and using a pen to touch the elevator buttons.

I worked for a cleaning crew once that used the same dirty old rag on every surface. and I mean EVERY surface, countertops, tables, floors, inside of toilet bowls...

taxandspend:angry_redhead: Dreamless: I used to work at a grocery store, so I'm really getting a kick out of some of these replies...

Uh, still reading the article.

I still work at a grocery store and while I'm also getting a kick, I'm kinda shaking my head too...

My favorite thing about working in a grocery store was that everyone presented themselves as professionals that are supposed to be able to know everything about the store, an image that is shattered as soon as a customer asks you how to eat a kumquat or starfruit. Because as a minimum wage courtesy clerk, I'm always filling up on the kumquats and starfruits.

Too true. I'm a cashier and I see some weird behaviours. We sell so many different things, kind of like a WM supercenter, but more food focused, not the other way around. People get really anal retentive about their clothes not touching the belt... So, they tried on something that some other person probably put on with sweaty armpits, but you don't want it touching the belt? Are you not going to wash it before you wear it? Just like when people biatch about me being careful about touching the produce. Not as in, 'be careful not to bruise the fruit' but more like, 'I don't want your hand touching it any more than it has to'. Cuz no one else has touched it in the produce section right?

/uses grocery carts from the store downstairs when going on dumpster runs//no, they don't get wiped down afterwards

///wash your produce before you eat it, seriously

I had an idiot coworker who told me she never washed her produced "because I buy organic, so it doesn't need washing."

And you didn't gleefully explain to her that "Organic" means it was fertilized with some kind of shiat rather than chemicals? Shame on you, unless you just found it more amusing to laugh every time she bit into a shiatapple.......

You wouldn't get sick all the time if you didn't constantly use those damn wipes. You don't build immunity by living in a sterile bubble.

But without the wipes and hand sanatiser how are we going to make the next batch of drug resistant impossable to kill flesh earthing bacteria ?

Overuse use of disinfectants may be bad for our immune systems, but I don't think they really have any relation to antibiotic resistant bacteria.

It would be like you trying to build an immunity to being dipped in lava.

Read the bottles over the past few years they have been haveing to increase the active ingredients to make them affective. Purell had 62% alcohol the new purell advanced is at 68% to keep the same 99.9% kill rate.Wet wipes(target store brand)have gone form .13 benzalkonium chloride to .3% between when I got my nipples priced and got a package to wipe the ring with last year and when I had I gauged out this month and had to buy a new container of them.

When I worked in a grocery store we used carts to drag the trash bags around, although we had a special rusted out cart for this task. Meanwhile, the carts in circulation are constantly getting food residue on them, and you don't see those flying through the cart wash at any point in their life. They will get cosmetically wiped if a kid vomits on them.

Remember, anyone can use your store, even smelly homeless people. Sometimes "normal" people will discard some fresh feces on the floor of the restroom, then track it around the store. Old people, who are probably washing at best 50% of the skin on their hands after taking a dump are handling your fresh fruit and veggies. As a cashier and bagger, I got a great look at your grandma and grandpa's dirty finger nails as they scrabbled for the courtesy pen to fill out their checks.

angry_redhead:People get really anal retentive about their clothes not touching the belt... So, they tried on something that some other person probably put on with sweaty armpits, but you don't want it touching the belt?

well, if it's the clothes I'm wearing I'm probably more afraid of getting snagged and sucked in.If you sell groceries at your store, yeah there's all kind of nasty stain-generating things that could be all over that belt. I never want anything to touch it directly.

teenage mutant ninja rapist:Ivo Shandor: Gaddiel: teenage mutant ninja rapist: For god sakes never use the coffee grinder. Trust me on that one. Also if you enjoy fast food then never ever get pickles on anything.

Crap, I like pickles on my burger. Care to elaborate?

Is it because of that guy who was fired for putting his dick in the pickle slicer?

Kids piss in the pickle jar. Never witnessed it but have heard from several sources. Also kids will put frozen patties on their feet and skate across the floor on them.also kids will piss in oven cleaner. That one I did witness.

as for the coffe grinder I once saw a fat bas*ard gob a steady stream of loogies into the grinder. For like 20 damn minutes.

saw kids in the meat department slapping eachother with steaks. Shiat if I think back to my days as a teen working in grocery stores Im sure I could remember some other doozies. Hell I quit buger king over the oven cleaner thing.

Im all for shenanigans. But pulling a tyler durden on the food supply crosses a line to me.mainly cause I love to eat.

That's what the fold down seat with the two legs holes up front is there for. That way 20 or 50 different babies can leave 'their mark' all over that seat and handle area. Ever seen store employees wiping them down?

FTFA: "Are the night janitors getting drunk on the job and mistaking the shopping carts for toilets? Actually, this, like so many other hazardous shopping experiences, is because of children. They have a habit of sticking their handseverywhere, and as such they tend to carry trace amounts of fecal matter -- among other things -- about their person at all times. "

serial_crusher:angry_redhead: People get really anal retentive about their clothes not touching the belt... So, they tried on something that some other person probably put on with sweaty armpits, but you don't want it touching the belt?

well, if it's the clothes I'm wearing I'm probably more afraid of getting snagged and sucked in.If you sell groceries at your store, yeah there's all kind of nasty stain-generating things that could be all over that belt. I never want anything to touch it directly.

Hmm, good point about the snags. Maybe it's because I'm actually a good cashier in that I'm really careful with always cleaning up the belt and making sure nothing will get ripped or snagged. Of course, that's also as much for my benefit - getting through an order as fast as possible helps us all out.

/Higher ring time is favourable, slower cashiers will get a talking to, especially if they're consistently slow//Customers appreciate faster lanes///Also apparently I need to smile like the village idiot while I'm going through the order...////Slashies!!!

You wouldn't get sick all the time if you didn't constantly use those damn wipes. You don't build immunity by living in a sterile bubble.

But without the wipes and hand sanatiser how are we going to make the next batch of drug resistant impossable to kill flesh earthing bacteria ?

Overuse use of disinfectants may be bad for our immune systems, but I don't think they really have any relation to antibiotic resistant bacteria.

It would be like you trying to build an immunity to being dipped in lava.

Read the bottles over the past few years they have been haveing to increase the active ingredients to make them affective. Purell had 62% alcohol the new purell advanced is at 68% to keep the same 99.9% kill rate.Wet wipes(target store brand)have gone form .13 benzalkonium chloride to .3% between when I got my nipples priced and got a package to wipe the ring with last year and when I had I gauged out this month and had to buy a new container of them.

That's what the fold down seat with the two legs holes up front is there for. That way 20 or 50 different babies can leave 'their mark' all over that seat and handle area. Ever seen store employees wiping them down?

There's no poop on carts, the junk science study only looked for fecal coliform bacteria on the carts, guess what? That bacteria is found on everything on Earth. Even brand new in the package toothbrushes. Check out the myth busters on this topic.

By dying at much younger ages due to a lack of medicine and sanitation?

Generally, the life expectancy numbers you're thinking of were lower because people died in childhood a lot more. Because kids and the elderly have weaker immune systems than adults. If you made it past 12, you had a pretty good chance at a nice long life. But a lot of people died at 3 or whatever, so the average gets dragged down to 45 or whatever.

Seriously, you have a farking immune system for a reason. Unless it's compromised in some way, the whole bubble boy thing will make you less healthy, not more.

I wish we could convince the overly panicky mothers who have been brainwashed into thinking they need every product from Clorox on standby 24/7 just in case their kid touches a germ. There are a few very large megacorps that are responsible for the vast majority of over-sterilization products on the market today.

This is why I actually desanitize my hands, I try to touch has much bacteria and virus infected material as possible. Then I make sure to strongly shake hands with everyone I meet. When eating I make sure to touch common food and refrain from using tongs. I split food with everyone I can. I feel it is just my service to society. Undoing all the over sanitizing people do that compromises their immune system.

/not even joking//never gets sick

Thank you so much for your truly noble service, I'll remember the idiots like you who do stuff like this the next time I get an antibiotic-resistant infection courtesy of the autoimmune disease I get to deal with.

breadprincess Thank you so much for your truly noble service, I'll remember the idiots like you who do stuff like this the next time I get an antibiotic-resistant infection courtesy of the autoimmune disease I get to deal with.

Oh, well then that wouldn't be his fault. He's purposely breeding the antibiotic-unresistant germs to help out people like you.

No, your problem's the people who find the need to buy Purell in bulk.

MusicMakeMyHeadPound:breadprincessThank you so much for your truly noble service, I'll remember the idiots like you who do stuff like this the next time I get an antibiotic-resistant infection courtesy of the autoimmune disease I get to deal with.

Oh, well then that wouldn't be his fault. He's purposely breeding the antibiotic-unresistant germs to help out people like you.

No, your problem's the people who find the need to buy Purell in bulk.

Oh, man... Venison is just so darn gooooood... My dad likes to hunt, and I used to get enough meat to freeze and eat all year round, but then he moved. I miss the deer meat more than my dad, if I'm honest.

You wouldn't get sick all the time if you didn't constantly use those damn wipes. You don't build immunity by living in a sterile bubble.

But without the wipes and hand sanatiser how are we going to make the next batch of drug resistant impossable to kill flesh earthing bacteria ?

Overuse use of disinfectants may be bad for our immune systems, but I don't think they really have any relation to antibiotic resistant bacteria.

It would be like you trying to build an immunity to being dipped in lava.

Read the bottles over the past few years they have been haveing to increase the active ingredients to make them affective. Purell had 62% alcohol the new purell advanced is at 68% to keep the same 99.9% kill rate.Wet wipes(target store brand)have gone form .13 benzalkonium chloride to .3% between when I got my nipples priced and got a package to wipe the ring with last year and when I had I gauged out this month and had to buy a new container of them.

Around here, probably a bit of poop. Where I work they're power washed a couple of times a year. We have a crop of pre-wealthy soccer/helicopter babies and mommy will burn through the container of sanitary wipes pretty damn fast.

#4. They Change Expiration Dates (and It's Usually Legal)

I've seen them do that for some hard cheeses but otherwise my store/company is pretty aggressive about pulling items a day before they're out of code. That being said they do seem to make dates up as they go along. For instance, our store-warmed muffins just changed from a 3 day to a week long code. I don't think they magically changed the muffin supplier or invented a new ingredient to keep them fresher longer, they just changed it.

I've detected a slide with date codes lately though in one department (not mine)... It seems to be a combination of aggressive sales projections leading to gross over-allocation or over-ordering...yet on the other end the pressure to make your numbers and keep the shrink down. The talking heads think it's cool to send along an extra pile of potato salad and when it's not gone by the right date, that's $$ into the trash and the department manager gets called out on the excessive waste, even if she didn't have any control over whether it came into the store or not.In my department they send us far too much crap too, but we have the luxury of a huge freezer so we can get to it when we get to it.We can get credit on the product if we sample it out...works great in my corner, but there's no really safe way in the store to sample out 50 lbs of extra cold salads. So it's either the trash or she fudges the dates. Yeah..it's not cool.

#3. Food Gets Recycled

We're trained to do a little 'repurposing' at the store level but yeah I've never seen them send shiat back to the manufacturer for that. Our old food goes to shelters, food kitchens or the recycle bins.

#2. The Meat Might Be Wearing a Disguise

Doesn't sound legit to me but I've also bought meat at C-Town that was a little gamier than it ought to be.

#1. The Health Inspection System Is, Let's Say, Rather Lax

Our own Mister Clean comes through at random and means business. In my department, at least, we've had sterner results from the inhouse inspector than we've gotten from the state. Now and then someone slips through the cracks in other locations, and everybody gets a frantic reminder to follow proper sanitation procedures.

The biggest danger where I am seems to be some of my mouthbreathing co-workers. We have an idiot who'll put on gloves to sample...then proceeds to stuff her own face. The chick in produce who goes into the bathroom stall and just drops her apron into a pile on the floor. The dim bulb who thinks it's ok to run a salami under the sanitizer when it hits the ground. We used to have a very-special-needs bagger who would pee herself and continue to bag up your fresh veggies.And don't forget precious little Timmy who wants to put his (obviously fecally coated) paws all over every cookie in the bucket and mom sees no problem with that.

You wouldn't get sick all the time if you didn't constantly use those damn wipes. You don't build immunity by living in a sterile bubble.

But without the wipes and hand sanatiser how are we going to make the next batch of drug resistant impossable to kill flesh earthing bacteria ?

Overuse use of disinfectants may be bad for our immune systems, but I don't think they really have any relation to antibiotic resistant bacteria.

It would be like you trying to build an immunity to being dipped in lava.

No, it has a pretty big effect. The stuff that can kill absolutely all the bacteria on a surface is not stuff you can put on your skin without major chemical burns, so unless the stuff you're using is strong enough to literally strip the skin off your hands, it's not killing everything. Hydrogen peroxide, for instance, at a concentration high enough to kill every last bacteria on a surface also sets fire to any organic material it touches. Other antibacterials have to rely on various other biological pathways, like binding to certain molecules and blocking them from use, or massively changing the osmotic pressure, or what have you.

Consider this: These aren't sexual reproducers, so it only takes one to build an entire army, so it only takes one which develops any sort of resistance to whatever you're using, even a mild resistance that just knocks 0.5% off the death rate, to leave behind a large amount which can then grow which are more likely to have little variabilities that make some of them more resistant. And, Since they reproduce faster than rabbits, the odds of just having just 1 with resistance is miniscule, because once one develops it, then it's gonna be producing a bunch more in short order.

As an example, in prime temperature with plenty of food and no competition and plenty of space to grow, it would take a single E. Coli bacteria about 19 hours to replicate itself into a total mass about equal to the average human. (The math on that: A single E. Coli weighs about 665 femtograms. 1 * 10^17 * 665fg ~= 70kg. Doubles itself every 20 minutes giving an exponential growth coefficient of 0.03465 from the equation 2 = 1e^(x*20). End population of 1 * 10^17 starting with a single bacterium gives the equation 1 * 10^17 = 1e^(0.03465*t). Natural log of 1 * 10^17 is ~39.143, giving the equation 39.143 = 0.03465*t, 39.143 / 0.03465 = t ~= 1129 minutes ~= 18.8 hours. Though of course, earlier generations will stop exponentially growing at some point in time, might add a few hours onto it)

Not only that, but you just killed off vast swaths of your natural fauna that would normally be keeping the more dangerous stuff in check, and most of the harmful bacteria that don't have a resistance that would normally be competing with the ones that do.

JesseL:JohnnyRebel88: Relatively Obscure: I don't care about most of these, at a glance. Mislabeling food as other food, though, is not okay.

"Reconditioning Food Programs" that are allowed by the FDA? Not cool.

Why not? Is it causing any problems?

How much food is it okay to waste because it sounds yucky?

I just believe that this would not have the same nutritional value as it once did buyer should have the right to know. Do you not think that the public should be aware that it went through such a program, and that if not, the consumer is being mislead into thinking that they are buying "fresh food"? Maybe the FDA could put a sticker on these items so the consumer would be aware of this practice, and also believe that it should be sold at a cheaper price. Why should the consumer be responsible for their spillage?

I worked with a girl whose previous job was re-packaging expired meat (large chain in Canada). If it smelled OK, she re-packaged it. From what she saw, she became a vegetarian. Also knew a guy who worked in an ice-cream plant. He said to never buy the chocolate, as the dark color could hide anything.

#5 Possible, but you would need to lick it clean to find some. Keep in mind that a) they can be left out in the rain a lot, and b) if there is something on it you can see, guest will prolly not use it and roll it aside for a new cart. Also WE generally don't want to touch it if it has been touched by poop or puke either. In my store if we come across one that has any such bodily fluid contact, we damage it out and send it to the receiving area where it will get pressure washed the next day. That said, they generally only get pressure washed by an outside co. like twice a year. Better then you will see at most other places.

#4 NEVER at target. Damaging items out because they are outdated or open is a no questions asked policy making it very easy for us to throw damaged and out of date stuff with zero repercussions. And nothing is done outside of target either, all food is thrown out or donated, never shipped back to the warehouse.

#3 See #4, nothing is ever sent back. If stuff goes bad at the warehouse, who knows,

#2 All our meat is sent in from outside warehouses.. nothing really fishy, if there was non beef stuff in it, it would be a larger scale issue beyond target.

#1 This may be a regional thing, but target has both state inspectors and a third party called Sertec that visits almost every month and never announces their visits. Since scores are a huge deal in the company to compare against other stores, Sertech safety scores are a big deal. It is also a score taken into account the team lead who manages the area when review time comes around.

Stoker:This is what Safeway does around here.[imageshack.us image 603x505]

That brown color? That's what color meat is supposed to be if it's not treated with something to turn it bright red.

And really, the takeaway from Number 5 is that babies/children are covered in shiat, so for all those parents freaking out about the grocery carts, why bother? You're just going to kiss your kid's shiat covered hand anyway.